Although languages
differ in orthography and regularity, research have shown that in the process
of reading acquisition (normal and deficient reading) the so called
"phonological core" appears to be constant across languages. However, differences
have been found in the time a certain reading/writing orthography is incorporated
(Hebrew, Dutch, German, French, Spanish, Greek), placing some of them in
the first two years of schooling while others requires at least 3 or 4
years (English, Chinese).
The time
it takes to learn a certain orthography writing system has also
been conceptually correlated to the path (phonological / orthographic)
used for reading words and non-words. Overall, one would think that "irregularities"
and "symbols" are to be learnt (memorized) by the orthographical path,
whereas "regular GFC" are learnt by the "phonological" route. After having
done this review, it is clear that the phonological route is definitely
implemented in the acquisition of the reading/writing skills across languages.
However, more irregular languages rely more on orthographic skills while
developing the phonological ones, where in more regular languages orthographic
skills appear to be accessed in a second stage, for the purposes of fluency
and reading comprehension.
Some studies
done in very regular languages (voweled Hebrew, German, Dutch), refer to
a speed factor in reading non-words,
what is another difference in the study of the patterns of reading acquisition
and reading disabilities across languages. In particular, children with
reading difficulties showed a higher level of accuracy in decoding non-words
compared to English RD children. However, these children did differ significantly
from a younger non-disabled group (Wimmer et al., 1996).
The assessment
of PA in different languages will not always show a great discrepancy with
decoding of words, but with the decoding of non-words
and naming speed. In orthographies with a more consistent GFC,
"time" should be a variable to be included when assessing reading problems,
more if the subject is over the third grade (in what is expected to have
acquired some fluency in decoding).
Studies done
in Spanish notice the importance of time
and error analysis, but did not report
differences with matched english population. Whereas in the studies done
in Dutch and German, references to this variable are quite significant.
This should be further researched to make more determinant conclusions.
It seems that the role of phonological abilities in the process of reading
has widely been researched, and that future research will pay more attention
to "time" and to the strategies used for the access
to meaning (comprehension) across orthographies, in that in
some languages children might use the phonological path in the process
of accessing meaning while in others skip it completely (because they are
using direct word-recognition / sight vocabulary). Error analysis
and decoding speed were the key concepts that appeared in
the research done in regular orthographies.
This paper
tended to be a conceptual review of what we know from research about the
reading process acquisition across languages and how the concept of "phonological
core of dyslexia" can be similarly applied to other languages with different
orthographies. Future research should also take a closer look at the measures
and variables involved in each study, and why not, do a "meta-analysis"
of the statistical results in each language.. This could bring more light
to the field of reading in different orthographies and bilingualism.
Implications
Facing the
fact that phonological abilities are so important in the reading process
and their role in the reading disabilities, instruction should incorporate
them systematically. The used of phonics instruction has been proved
to be effective in English due to the irregularity of the language, but
after reading this paper is very clear that it would also produce compensations
in transparent languages. Further, we will provide to a great number
of children with strategies for a successful schooling despite their natural
difficulties with reading. Prevention programs should also be implemented
from kindergarten. Early identification is the key for an effective instruction
and compensation of the difficulties.
Once decoding
is establish or the individual has reached a certain age (as adolescent),
teaching sight vocabulary to reinforce the access to orthographic lexicon,
appears to be a very important strategy that would positively affect
fluency and reading comprehension.
Most of the
studies reviewed in this paper were done with children from ages 5 to 10.
Althought there is data available mostly in English on how reading disabilities
evolve across life-span (Gottardo et.al, 1997)
, no data has been reviewed here to support the idea that the pattern of
"dyslexia" would develop into another pattern across orthographies. However,
is an important topic to be taken in account for educational implications.
Longitudinal studies are the more complex to do, but what common sense
and clinical practice usually say is that they will show one pattern at
the beginning level and then due to compensations and cognitive demanding
(school content) the pattern will turn into problems in the area of: memory
/study skills; writing / spelling ; and reading comprehension. This should
be in the mind of the people (theachers, therapists, psychologists) in
contact with students with learning disabilities in order to be able to
provide them with the strategies in advance, so they will not experience
frustration and lost of motivation towards cognitive demanding and reading.
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